Short Time
by Wolfram-and-Hart-Sauron
Summary: A freak accident sends WALL-E back in time. He'll try to survive until he can find a way home, explore this strange time, and meet a distant relative. Something special for the two year anniversary of the movie.
1. When Time Runs Out

**Short Time**

by Wolfram-And-Hart-Sauron

_Disclaimer: I don't own_ WALL•E_, Pixar and Disney does. Though if they want to hire me as a writer or animator, I'll be more than happy to oblige!_

Chapter 1: When Time Runs Out

Two years ago, the _U.S.S. Axiom_ returned to Earth after its seven hundred year cruise. The passengers were the first humans to set foot on Earth in centuries. Generations of having their every need catered to had left humanity as a race of overgrown children, but now the children had learned to walk again. A new beginning had come, with more than a little help from a Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class unit and an Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator probe.

WALL•E and EVE, were folk heroes to the human and robot populations. Those two, directly or indirectly, broke the mechanical and flesh and blood inhabitants of the _Axiom_ out of their stupor and ended AUTO, the autopilot's reign of monotony. Since returning to Earth, Captain McCrea had insisted that WALL•E and EVE be part of his brain trust in the new Earth administration. It seemed only fitting that the ones who helped him wake up to his responsibilities as a leader be there with him making decisions.

On this day, the Captain had sent a group into the city to hunt for any technology or supplies in the ancient buildings. WALL•E and EVE went with the group, since WALL•E had the more experience than anyone in exploring the city, and EVE was always happy to be on assignments with WALL•E. The team consisted of two humans, John and Mary, and three robots, EVE, WALL•E and M-O. They had been sent to search a building marked "BnL Research and Development".

"Ooh!" WALL•E said, looking up at the building. It was amazing that he had been in the city for over seven hundred years and never even went to this place before.

"WALL•E." EVE called, snapping her companion out of his reverie.

The exploration party slowly forced open door to the building, kicking up the centuries of dust that had accumulated in the room. M-O's directive took over and the compulsive little robot began furiously scrubbing the floor.

"OK, everybody, stick together." John said, looking around. "This place is old and we don't want anyone getting hurt or lost. Hey, M-O!"

"Huh?" M-O beeped, looking up from his cleaning.

"Let's get a move on." John ordered as they began to walk down a hall, further into the building. M-O looked after the search party, then back at the floor. He buzzed in frustration and followed, cleaning up the floor as he went.

"OK, let's check here first." John said, pushing open a door. EVE flew in first, her ion cannon armed and ready. She scanned the room for any threats, ready to blast anything that moved into atoms. When she was satisfied that the room was clear, she motioned for the others to come in. The group cautiously walked into the room, except for M-O, who pushed ahead to clean the floor.

"Lights!" John called out, and the room lit up. Thankfully the solar power generator for the building was still functioning. One thing good to be said about the Buy N Large Corporation, they made things to last. The lights revealed a laboratory full of half finished machines and equipment.

"OK, let's spread out and look for anything useful." Mary said, and everyone wandered to their own part of the lab.

"Hmm." WALL•E beeped as he rolled towards a large cabinet. He slowly opened the cabinet door, looked inside... and received a mop and a buck falling on his head for the trouble. The compactor buzzed in annoyance and slammed the cabinet door shut.

"It's amazing what people used to be able to do in this place." Mary said, looking over a set of blue prints.

"Yeah, look at this!" John said, looking at some old news holograms. "Self reheating coffee!"

EVE floated along a long table, scanning as she went. She was about to float over to the next table when something caught her eye.

"Ooh." EVE said as she leaned in for a closer look. There were two of zippo lighters lying on the table, her and WALL•E's favorite things. These ones were different than the ones in their collection at home. They were red chrome, and there was a white circular shape on one side of each of them. EVE turned and floated over to WALL•E.

"EVE-AH?" WALL•E inquired as she approached.

"WALL•E." EVE said, holding up the lighters she found.

"Ooh!" WALL•E said as she handed him one of the lighters. He rolled the lighter in his hand, examining the color and shapes on the little metal object. He also noticed writing on the other side. It read "her ever". WALL•E pointed to the writing, which made EVE check her lighter. There was writing on hers as well, it read "Toget For". They looked at the lighters and wondered what it could mean.

"Oh!" EVE said, as she realized something. She held her lighter out and motioned for WALL•E to hold his next to it. They saw that when the two lighters were held side by side, the white shapes on both lighters came together to form a heart, and the writing joined to spell "Together Forever".

"EVE-AH." WALL•E said dreamily, as the held their new lighters together.

"WALL•E." EVE replied sweetly.

"Hey, uh, guys?" The robot lovers looked up to see John, Mary and M-O heading out the door. "Sorry to intrude, but we're ready to move on."

"OK." EVE said as she and WALL•E followed, a little embarrassed.

The group went on to the next room and, once again, EVE flew in and scanned for threats first. The rest of the group entered the room and turned the lights on. This room was large and mostly empty. There was a series of large pods on the walls, each about the size of one of the escape pods from the Axiom. Next to each pod were control consoles, one of which was getting a scrub down by M-O. The only object that seemed out of place was an old ladder propped up against the wall.

"Careful." John said, looking around. "These machines could be dangerous."

WALL•E rolled over to one of the pods and looked inside, EVE close behind. This machine was a lot like the escape pod GO-4 launched him and the plant in, but there were no controls, no seats, or equipment of any kind inside. There were a series of light fixtures embedded in the walls, but they were all dark. The pod had no propulsion system, fuel intake valves or any way to steer, so this machine wasn't made for conventional travel. So, what was it for?

M-O scrubbed at the panel until his sensors recognized it as all clean, and turned to roll over to the next panel. He only got two feet when his contaminant detector spotted the old ladder and he went berserk. It was so encrusted with rust, mold and dust that it you couldn't see an inch of the ladder itself. It could have been made of metal or wood or anything else and you would never be able to tell. It reminded M-O of the first time he'd scanned WALL•E and came up with 100% contamination.

"Wak!" M-O yelped in disgust as the red light rose from his head. The little cleaner bot turned his scrubbing brush to full power and began cleaning it. He scrubbed for a few seconds and the eradicated filth gave way and let M-O see it was a wooden ladder. Unfortunately, the wood was so rotted from centuries of mold that the ladder snapped where M-O was cleaning. He jumped back as the ladder slid against the wall and fell onto the control panel he had just cleaned.

The sound of the ladder hitting the console got group's attention, but they were more alarmed by the controls lighting up after the ladder hit. It had hit some buttons when it fell and activated the machine. EVE and WALL•E dashed towards the pod door as they heard it powering up. EVE flew out in time, but the door slammed shut before WALL•E got out.

"Ah!" WALL•E jumped back as the doors to the pod closed in his face. "EVE-AH!"

"WALL•E!" EVE called out to her lover inside the pod. She watched as WALL•E knocked on the small porthole on the pod door.

"Uh oh!" M-O warbled in terror.

"WALL•E! Buddy, can you hear me?" John said, pounding on the pod door. He was answered with several light knocks on the door and scared warbling from the trapped robot.

"Ah!" WALL•E yelped as a holographic screen opened up behind him. A sequence of numbers flashed across the screen until finally coming to rest at 1988. The little trashbot jumped as the pod began to emit a low hum that steadily got louder. Then the lights in the walls of the pod flickered on and began to intensify. WALL•E beeped frantically as he pushed against the door.

"Uh oh! I don't like the sound of that!" Mary said, as the hum grew louder. As the light came through the pod doors, the group became frantic. "We've got to get him out of there!"

"Quick, look for something to break the door down with!" John yelled, frantically looking for any kind of blunt instrument to break the door or the windows.

"WALL•E!" M-O cried out in concern. If anything happened to his friend, it would be all his fault! The little robot warbled furiously and did the only thing he could do: he charged at the door with his scrubber and vigorously tried in vain to clean the door open.

"EVE-AH!" WALL•E cried as the lights became so blinding that EVE could barely make out his shadow in the window.

"WALL•E!" EVE cried in desperation. She had to get him out of there! She backed up and activated her ion gun, which M-O saw and quickly sprinted out of the way. She begged any higher power listening that she could blast the door open without hurting WALL•E. She took aim, but before she could shoot, the light inside the pod flashed and then went out. The pod was silent and dark; no sound of banging or shouts for help.

"Uh oh..." John and Mary said in unison, dreading what they would find inside.

"WALL•E?" EVE called out, but no answer came from the pod. The doors suddenly opened on their own and the search party gathered closer to the door. The pod was empty! WALL•E was gone, and there was no sign of what the machine had done to him. No singe marks, no smoke, no parts, nothing left behind at all.

"No. No!" EVE cried in anguish.

* * *

WALL•E slowly peered out from his boxed up body and looked around. He wasn't in the building anymore. He was sitting in an alley next to several large trash bags and a beat up old vehicle of some kind. EVE, M-O and everyone else were nowhere to be seen.

"EVE-AH! M-O! John! Mary!" WALL•E called out, but was answered only by his own echo.

He unboxed himself and looked around the alley. He smiled inwardly when a roach crawled out from under the old car. Maybe he'd met one of Hal's brothers or sisters. He whistled to the roach, but it ignored him. He reached over to try to pick it up, but the bug just skittered away without even looking at him. WALL•E sighed in frustration. The bugs in this place weren't very friendly.

The little robot began to roll towards the end of the alley. Maybe if he got a better look at where he was, he'd find a way back to his friends. He trundled down the alley when he suddenly noticed something, it was much noisier than the city normally was. There was a dull roar of voices and machine noises that dwarfed even the constant din on the _Axiom_. WALL•E got to the end of the alley cautiously looked peeked out from behind some trash cans. If he had a mouth, it would be hanging near the ground at the sight before him.

The empty street was teaming with humans! There were hundreds of them, all walking or running down the street. To make things even stranger, these humans weren't like the former Axiom passengers, most of them were thin and didn't wear the uniform red jumpsuit. WALL•E hadn't seen humans like this in seven hundred years, except on the automatic holograms around the city he passed on his way to and from work.

WALL•E was amazed, but he was snapped out of it when a woman walked by and lit a cigarette with a zippo lighter. WALL•E took out the red lighter EVE gave him in the lab and gazed at it longingly before lighting it. He realized that wherever he was, it was a long way from home, from his friends, and most importantly, from EVE.

To be continued.


	2. A World Outside Of Yonkers

Chapter 2: A World Outside of Yonkers

I don't own WALL•E.

* * *

WALL•E timidly rolled out of the alley. The sight of all these strange humans was just bizarre. He had gotten used to seeing to seeing humans again in the last two years, but these people were drastically different. For one thing, he had been rolling along the sidewalk for over fifteen minutes and none of them even noticed he was there. It reminded him of the obliviousness on the _Axiom_, except some of these people seemed to be actively trying to ignore each other. For another, most of them were incredibly slim compared to the people left obese from a lifetime of doing nothing aboard the starliner.

WALL•E chirped at the humans, but none of them seemed to notice. He rolled along until he saw something strange. He rolled over to a fire hydrant on the edge of the sidewalk. He had never seen one of these before, and wondered the strange red object might be some kind of robot. He waved at the hydrant, hoping to make friends with the strange robot. He was met with silence.

"Yoo-hoo." WALL•E called, waving again. The strange red thing still gave no reply. "Aw."

He then saw the small appendages on the side and thought these might be arms. He extended his own arm to shake hands, but the hydrant still ignored him. WALL•E took hold of the hydrant's "hand" and tried to shake it. It wouldn't budge. The garbage-bot turned his hand from side to side in an effort to get some reaction. His eye brows shot up as he felt the "hand" turn in his own. Finally, he made progress! He excitedly turned his new friend's hand, laughing as he hoped he'd made a new friend.

His happiness was cut short as a huge stream of water shot out from the hydrant and blasted WALL•E several feet back. The humans around him yelled in annoyance as the water drenched them as well.

"What the hell happened?" yelled a man in a now soggy business suit.

"What the hell is that thing?" the business man yelled, pointing at WALL•E.

"I don't know, but it opened the hydrant!" Yelled the angry woman. WALL•E realized that he was in trouble. He saw the cap of the hydrant in his hand and hid it behind his back in a vain attempt to play innocent.

"Stupid thing!" the man said, giving WALL•E a swift kick to his door. The kick sent the little robot rolling backwards into the street.

WALL•E sputtered angrily at the man until the sound of a horn grabbed his attention. He yelped as a big red car rushed right past him. Two more sped by behind him, scaring the daylights out trashbot. He turned just in time to see a huge white pickup truck bearing down on him.

"AH!" WALL•E yelled as he sped out of the way of the truck, running right into the path of a blue mustang. He sped down the street as fast as his treads would go, trying to outrun the car. He whizzed ahead until he suddenly ran into something. He saw that another car had stopped at a red light right in front of him. He turned and saw the perusing car had done the same. He sighed in relief until he heard another angry yell.

"WHAT WAS THAT?" Came the voice. WALL•E took that as his cue to leave. He quickly rolled onto the sidewalk and boxed up behind a garbage can. A man emerged from the car he ran into and saw the dent he left. The man became even angrier and began yelling at the car WALL•E had run from. "You idiot, you rear ended me!"

"I did not, ya jerk!" yelled the man from the blue car.

WALL•E slowly rolled into a nearby alley, trying to remain unseen. He unboxed himself as he rolled behind a dumpster. WALL•E sighed as he looked at the piles of garbage just laying everywhere. His old directive kicked in and he began gathering the trash up and compacting it. In a few minutes, he'd made a dozen cubes. It eased his mind to do something he was familiar with in this strange place.

He rolled over to a pile next to a large cardboard box and began compacting again. He piled another five cubes on the little stack he had begun when he suddenly ran into a problem. He scooped up a load for compacting, but an old shoe amongst trash didn't move. WALL•E tried scooping it up, but it was too heavy.

"Hmm." WALL•E whirred. He reached and tried to pick the show up, but it wouldn't move. He tried to pull it off the ground, only to have it pull back. "Huh?"

WALL•E gave one last tug at the shoe when suddenly, the large box flew into the air, revealing an old man underneath.

"AH!" screamed the old homeless man as WALL•E jumped back in fear, letting go of the man's shoe. The old man had been sleeping underneath the box and WALL•E had given him a rude awakening. He adjusted his stocking cap over his thick head of grey hair. He grabbed a piece of paper stuck in his long white beard and threw it in WALL•E's direction. He pulled his worn old trench coat tight over what appeared to be a badly torn, stained suit. He rubbed his dirty face and looked around, trying to get his bearings. "What? What? What's going on here?"

"Uh oh." WALL•E said, his head sinking part way into his body.

"What is..." The bum began, but stopped midsentence as he saw WALL•E. His eyes widened in a mix amazement and horror. "Oh no! No! No, no, no, no! You... you're not supposed to be here!"

"Uh..." WALL•E backed up, nervous at making yet another person mad at him.

"You don't exist! You can't! HOW CAN YOU BE HERE?" The old man screamed. WALL•E backed away, not knowing how to answer the old man's questions. "Are you here to hurt me?"

WALL•E yelped and shook his optics in an emphatic no.

"It's not my fault! I tried! I did my best! It's not my fault we got into this mess!" The man said desperately to WALL•E. The man's eyes darkened "It's _YOU_! IT'S _YOUR_ FAULT! WHY DIDN'T YOU DO YOUR JOB! THIS NEVER WOULD'VE HAPPENED IF _YOU'D_DONE YOUR JOB!"

WALL•E began backing away from this increasingly scary man.

"I trusted you! We all did! And you didn't come through!" The old man roared, grabbing a piece of board from the ground. "You wrecked everything! Well, I may as well return the favor!"

The old man swung the board at WALL•E, missing him by mere inches. That was it! WALL•E sped out of the alley as fast as his treads could carry him. The old man swung at him as he passed, but only hit the dumpster instead.

WALL•E sped onto the sidewalk, maneuvering through people, not caring if they noticed him or anything besides getting away from the scary man. The old man looked around the street for the little robot, but he was long gone. WALL•E slowed his pace as he saw that the old man was nowhere to be seen. He leaned against a garbage can in relief.

WALL•E turned and saw dozens of humans walking in and out of a large building. His curiosity had peaked. He rolled up to the building as the doors slid open for him. This place was filled with many, many things he had never seen before. Judging by the signs that hung everywhere, this place belonged to someone named Macy. Whoever this Macy person was, WALL•E thought he or she must be very nice for letting all these people come in and play with all this stuff.

He saw two female humans looking over a long black dress. They seemed to not like it.

"Look at this." One woman said, holding up the price tag. "I could get this for half the price when Gimbels was still open."

"Outrageous." Said the second woman. The first woman threw the dress back on the rack. WALL•E rolled over to the dress. He lifted it off the rack and inspected the dress. Being a robot, he didn't understand the appeal of clothes. He inspected the price tag in his hand. For some reason, this little piece of paper had made that woman mad. He decided to fix it. He ripped the tag off the dress and put it back on the rack. But then, he noticed that all the other dresses on the rack had similar tags. Well, he'd just have to fix all of them. After a minute of work, all the dresses were free of those bad tags. WALL•E buzzed happily as he rolled away, pleased with his good deed.

He rolled on when he suddenly saw something horrific. He yelped as he beheld what he thought was several mutilated human bodies. The stood there in the isle in plain view, yet the humans paid no attention. There were three missing their heads, three torsos missing their heads, arms and legs and several more that looked more or less intact, but their faces were missing. WALL•E stared at the mannequins in horror. What kind of monster could have done this? Could it still be around?

WALL•E boxed up in fear and rolled in the opposite direction as fast as his treads could carry him. He turned down an aisle and looked behind him to make sure he wasn't followed. He sighed in relief and looked around. He was surrounded by hundreds of pink boxes depicting a blonde girl named Barbie. He rolled down the aisle, taking in the strange shrine to whoever this Barbie person was.

"Hi." came a voice from behind him.

He turned and saw two humans and a small child in a stroller. The man was very large and reminded him of the people back home. The woman was much skinnier, and had the same color hair as his friend Mary. The little girl had dark hair like her father and wore a pink shirt with a picture of a smiling mouse on it. The parents were distracted talking to each other and apparently hadn't even noticed WALL•E. However, the little girl in the stroller saw him and smiled at him.

"I'm Nancy." The little girl said.

"WALL•E." WALL•E replied, pointing to himself.

"Hee-hee, you're a funny toy." Nancy said, giggling in delight.

"Toy?" WALL•E asked. He wasn't sure he had ever heard that word before.

"Mommy, can I have the funny robot?" Nancy asked, turning up to her mother. The mother turned from the discussion with her father and looked down at WALL•E. Her eyes widened at the strange, dirty looking, _supposedly_ toy robot.

"I think you're a little too young for a toy like that. Maybe for your next birthday." The mother said.

"OK, by, WALL•E." Nancy waved as her parents went down the aisle.

WALL•E waved goodbye to the little girl. She was the nicest person he'd met since he came to this weird place, and he certainly liked meeting her.

He turned the corner and saw a large box marked Super Balls. He reached up to try and get one of these "super balls", but he accidentally knocked over the box. Hundreds of tiny, brightly colored balls.

"Wuh-oh." WALL•E said. He better clean this up. He opened his door and reached with his hands down to scoop the balls into his compactor. The second he touched the balls, they bounced out of his grasp. He tapped his finger, trying to rethink his approach. He rolled over to the side and began rolling into the mess of balls, sweeping them into his compactor as he rolled along. He succeeded in gathering them all. He scooped up the last little green one and compacted the balls.

He ejected a neatly crushed cube of rubber balls. Now they would be easier to put back. He reached forward to put the cube back in the box, only to have the cube explode. The compressed rubber balls flew in every direction as WALL•E boxed up again to avoid being hit.

He raised his optics enough to see his little plan had backfired. The balls had knocked over several other toys, several displays of dishware near the toy aisle. Several balls had flown into people's faces or rolled on the floor causing people to slip. And worst of all, several balls were still bouncing off the walls and causing chaos around the store.

Still in his box form, he rolled back towards the door, trying his best to not be noticed. He was so distraught at the bedlam he had unintentionally created that he failed to notice he was zooming right for the mannequins he'd seen before. He ran right into them ad he rolled, knocking them over and causing one to land on top of him. He screamed as what he thought was a dead body fell on him. He rolled at top speed towards the door, too panicked to remember how to open the door He just raced through the plate glass window and got out of there as fast as he could.

WALL•E rolled away from the store and turned into an alley. He shook in his box from this whole experience. He just wanted to hide from this weird place. He wished he could just enter sleep mode and wake up back in the truck with EVE. He stayed there in that alley for the rest of the day.

When night came, he decided to risk a look out at the place at night. He hoped a sandstorm wouldn't kick up when he had no place to hide. He looked out at the brightly lit street and found it strangely beautiful. He wondered if the rest of the city looked like this too.

He looked around and noticed a fire escape on the side of the building. He climbed up the ladders until he reached the roof of the building. He looked out over the city and was amazed.

"Ooh!" WALL•E said, gazing at the skyline in wonder. This place was weird. One minute, it seemed like the most unpleasant place he'd ever been and the next it was a place of magic. He absent mindedly hit his play button. _Put On Your Sunday Clothes_ began to play and realized he'd never really understood those lyrics until that moment.

_Out there_

_There's a world outside of Yonkers_

_Way out there beyond this hick town, Barnaby_

_There's a slick town, Barnaby_

_Out there_

_Full of shine and full of sparkle_

_Close your eyes and see it glisten, Barnaby_

_Listen, Barnaby..._

He looked out over this strange new world. So this is what the man, Cornelius was talking about in his favorite movie. The new discoveries, the new places. Even seeing the Axiom for the first time wasn't quite this wondrous.

_Put on your Sunday clothes,_

_There's lots of world out there_

_Get out the brilliantine and dime cigars_

_We're gonna find adventure in the evening air_

_Girls in white in a perfumed night_

_Where the lights are bright as the stars!_

This place was a new adventure. One that no robot had ever had before. The people were different, the city was unlike anything he'd seen in centuries. The buildings were all lit up with thousands of tiny lights, it was so bright it really _was_ as bright as the stars.

_Put on your Sunday clothes, we're gonna ride through town_

_In one of those new horse drawn open cars_

_We'll see the shows at Delmonico's_

_And we'll close the town in a whirl_

_And we won't come home until we've kissed a girl!_

The last lyric shook WALL•E from his reverie. This place was amazing, but it lacked the one thing that would make it perfect: having EVE there with him. He pulled out the lighter she gave him. It was his only connection to her. He stared at it for a long moment, then held it close to his chest. It wasn't anywhere close to having her there with him, but it would have to do for now. He promised in that moment that he would find a way home, and when he got there he would kiss his girl.

* * *

Author's note: OK, first of all, HUGE APOLOGY to everyone for taking so long. I kept trying to work on this story, but something kept coming up whenever I tried to work on it. I'll try to keep the updates more regular.

I incorporated some of the WALL•E shorts on Youtube into his chapter cause I thought it would fit with his predicament. Congrats if you got the reference. Also, sorry if I don't get the details of the NYC right, I've never been there so I don't know jack about the layout besides landmarks like the Empire State Building and Central Park are there somewhere being.


End file.
